


two ghosts

by vulptex



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force Ghost Padmé Amidala, Force Ghosts, Pining, Rating May Change, basically a parent trap au but not really, rey attempting to be a jedi and anakin attempting to coach her through it but he's imperfect at it, yes I am aware that padmé technically can't be a force ghost let me live
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-06-20 20:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15541926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulptex/pseuds/vulptex
Summary: we're just two ghosts standing in the place of you and me/ trying to remember what it feels to have a heartbeatBen Solo has not seen his grandmother's force ghost since his childhood. After Crait, she finds him again and attempts to coax him back to the light side.Back to Rey.





	1. Chapter 1

 

Ben Solo is six the first time his grandmother visits him in his childhood bedroom. It is nearing midnight, the pitter patter of rain mixing with his parents’ raised voices and dangling sleep from his reach. Granted, he’s used to not sleeping— even as a baby, he had never slept much. Something inside of him was awake, and _brutally_ restless, though he could not figure out what. No matter how many nights he spent tossing and turning in his twin bed (which he would very soon outgrow), he couldn’t become well-acquainted with this part of him. An infinite itch he could not scratch. Ben figures tonight will be just like any other, but the rain and his parents fighting _definitely_ didn’t help things.

 

He notices her in the moonlight peeking through the cracks in his curtains, a faint blue light dimly illuminating the room. Her face is fair and her brown eyes kind. The long, dark curls that spilled over her shoulders were adorned with white flowers that Ben couldn’t put a name to. She is beautiful, a blue glow radiating from her that suggests otherworldliness, and a blue gown suggesting royalty. Ben props himself up by his knobby elbows, squinting his sleepy eyes at her in fascination.

 

“Are you an angel?” 

 

She had giggled at him then (although, he did not find his question very funny). “Oh, you’re so much like him.” The angel’s voice is fond, a certain nostalgia nesting in it, and she tilts her head while looking at him as though she had seen him before.

 

“Just like who?” Ben scrunched up his face, annoyed at the prospect of being compared to someone else.

 

“No one you know. Another boy that I knew, long ago,” the angel without wings answers. Ben has questions. And, as though sensing this, she begins to move closer to him, her gown shimmering like the sea with her every movement; dark blue and deep, rippling like waves.

  
It seems so silly to him, how out of place she looks gliding across his carpet and stepping over the many strewn, misplaced toys and clothes. When she reaches his bedside, she crouches down to level herself with him. The angel’s kind face is shrouded in moonlight, the silvery light glittering her cheekbones.

 

“Well, I’m not him. I’m Ben.”

 

“I’m Padmé. It’s very nice to meet you, Ben.”

 

“Should we shake hands?” he asks awkwardly. He’s seen his mom do this all the time, whenever someone came round the apartment to discuss politics and policies and a bunch of other things he didn’t really understand— she had told him, when he asked if it was something that adults did, that it was how you greeted someone you had never met before. It was the proper, polite thing to do, she had explained to him. He wasn’t quite sure if this was the right protocol for angels, though. Padmé looks amused for a beat, then extends her hand to him. He reaches hesitantly, not knowing what to expect. When their hands touch, it is like air passing. Like wind on his fingertips.

 

“Not a very firm handshake,” Padmé says apologetically. “I’ll need to work on that.” Ben giggles.

 

“I felt your distress, child. What is it that is troubling you?”

 

“So you _are_ a guardian angel,” Ben says triumphantly, dodging the question. She considers this carefully for a moment. 

 

“Of sorts.”

 

Ben frowns, not completely content with this answer. He knows this woman. He’s never seen her, but he knows her. There’s a familiarity there, that tugs at his heart, trying to make itself known. He knows her… 

 

“Is it you? The voice I hear all the time, in my dreams.” Or, nightmares. He hasn’t decided which they were, but he has been having them as long as he could remember. It wasn’t a voice all the time. It was a presence. He was aware of it, and could never describe it efficiently. It was just there, and he never knew if it was good or bad, and if it were Padmé, he could stop worrying about which it was because he knew it was good, that _she_ was good…

 

Padmé’s eyebrows knit together, the same look he’s seen on his mother whenever she was worrying too much, and it gives away an answer instantly. 

 

“Dreams?”

 

“It’s nothing. Sometimes… there’s a voice. It’s always the same one. I think it wants to be my friend. Like it knows how alone I feel,” he whispers, a secret he holds just for her, this blue angel with flowers in her hair and a gown made of water. Her eyes grow sad as she searches his face.

 

“You are not alone, Ben. No matter how you feel. Remember that. You never will be.”

 

He believes her almost instantly. 

 

She gently runs her fingers through his hair. Air passing. Like light wind, almost tangible. It's the last thing he remembers before falling deep into a peaceful sleep, unplagued by nightmares for the first time he can remember. 

 

When he awoke, there was a single white flower laying on his pillow, a reminder for later. A reassurance that he did not make her up.

 

He tucked it away for later. For once, a secret not a burden to keep.

 

 

-

 

 

The smuggling compartment of the Falcon is a small, cramped space to meditate, but it is about the best option Rey has, or at least the only one she hasn’t tried yet. Everywhere else on the ship, she has been interrupted— usually by Threepio, whose knack for showing up at the wrong time seemingly happened more often when his anxiety was at its peak (which, Rey noted the third time he walked into the docking bay in twenty minutes, is _very_ often for a droid). So she had to make do with this: her crossed legs knocking her knees against the metallic walls, back slightly arched so as to avoid banging her head. It was so close to being comfortable but _just_ missed the mark, making it all the more unbearable, but she supposes she’ll suck it up.

 

Now that she’s alone, she’s not quite sure how to _begin_. What’s she supposed to do here, now that she’s finally gotten this far? She shuts her eyes and tries to reach out, to “feel the Force” like Luke taught her to. The memory of their first lesson together crosses her mind, and she smiles at the thought of her physically reaching out rather than with her mind. She was so eager and excited then, and it seems like years ago when the weight of becoming a Jedi didn’t hang quite so heavily onto her shoulders. At least then, she knew she wasn’t alone on this path. She had Luke to teach her what she needed to know. 

 

But now, she’s the last of the Jedi (if she could even call herself that).

 

And utterly, completely, _alone_.

 

_You’re not alone,_ a voice insists, deep and pleading and prodding at her head _._ He’s not actually there, but the audible memory of Kylo’s voice that night by the fire makes her shiver— with anger, with sadness, with regret. This was all him that did this to her, ever since he took her on Takodana. He’s the one who invaded her mind. He’s the one who caused _all_ of this. If he wasn’t so obsessed with that map. If she hadn’t seen the map. If she hadn’t met Finn, or BB-8. 

 

_If she had only stayed on Jakku._ The thought is snarky and she pushes it away. No. She knew the Force had started to write her fate, knew she had some control over it no matter how limited, but no matter what, this connection would have formed. She can’t sit here and regret what brought her here. That would just be ungrateful.

 

Rey tucks her hair behind her ear before trying again, attempting to calm down enough to meditate properly. She can almost hear Luke’s voice: _What do you see?_

 

Her eyebrows knit in frustration when she sees _nothing_. She can feel the Force buzzing around her, but it doesn’t care to show her anything. Maybe she wasn’t reaching far enough. Yes, that’s it. She strains, struggling to extend her grasp with an imaginary fist, coming up with nothing but air through the spaces of her fingers.

 

“You are thinking too much,” a voice says softly, and Rey jumps (“Oy!”), banging her head against the wall behind her. She winces, touching the back of her head tenderly. Was she so lost in meditation that she didn’t realize she had a guest? There is a man facing her, sharing her posture, his eyes still shut, as though joining her in meditation. He is so close that she can make out the scar running down his face that, for a split, inane second, she thinks it is Ben— Kylo— and her heart stutters. The same long, unruly hair, the same sardonic half-smile that splits his face when he hears her bang her head, the same black robes— she could kick herself for automatically being reminded of him. 

 

“Who are you?” Whoever he was, he was not human or alive or possibly _here_. There was a blue tinge surrounding him, and she notices that their knees _should_ be overlapping, but she feels nothing. “Or, _what_ are you?” He keeps his eyes closed, much to her frustration. He is silent for a beat as though _she’s_ the one interrupting _him_ and she nearly asks him to speak, for kriffs sake.

 

“I’m sure you’ve read those ancient Jedi texts enough times to take a guess or two,” he replies, making Rey take a nervous side glance at her bag, the dusty books spilling out from the admitted carelessness with which she dropped them down. She vaguely recalls a page about ghosts, living beyond death, becoming one with the Force, immortalized between its energy.

 

“You’re a Jedi, then? Sorry— _were_ a Jedi?”

 

“ _Was_ , yes, that’s a way of putting it,” he chuckles. “At first. At the end, not quite.” She doesn’t have a chance to ask what he means by this because suddenly, his eyes are open and staring right through her. 

 

“You stole them from Ahch-To.” It’s not accusatory by any means; if anything, he sounds curious and amused, but it catches her off guard and turns her face red.

 

“I _scavenged_ them. There’s a difference.” It comes out defensive— because, in part, she did feel guilty for taking them from the island. She hadn’t intended to, but her anger at Luke was still simmering and fresh, and she had acted impulsively. What else was there to do, after all? Let them stay collecting dust in the hollows of an old tree, unused and unseen? It seemed wasteful, for her to leave them there, and with Luke now gone, it was as if she had known when she took them that it’d be the best option.

 

“Oh?” The ghost smirks with a smugness that she recognizes all too well from Kylo. 

 

“There is,” she insists indignantly, cheeks still burning. She quickly breaks away eye contact with him, attempting to stuff the texts back into her bag while continuing. “Stealing is taking things just for the sake of it. Scavenging is saving something old and making it usable again— oh, kriff, won’t you just _fit_ already?” He chuckles, watching her fumble with the bag.

 

“If you say so, scavenger.” Rey’s head snaps up almost instantly, that word sinking in her stomach. _You, a scavenger._

 

“Rey. My name is Rey. Not _scavenger_ ,” she snaps, hotly. Instead of looking embarrassed, he looks at her with sympathy, head tilting slightly as he considers her. She hates it. She hates him, she hates that she’s the one shifting awkwardly under his gaze rather than the other way around. Maybe when you’re dead, unfortunate social situations don’t seem the bother you as much as they would the living. Or, maybe he was just an ass.

 

“Anakin,” he says finally. “Nice to meet you, Rey.”

 

She nods, jaw slightly relaxing and unclenching itself.

 

“Where are you from?” 

 

Her mouth falls open and history repeats itself all over again.

 

_“Nowhere.”_


	2. Chapter 2

Here’s a secret that the Supreme Leader of the First Order— formerly Jedi Knight Ben Solo— would not admit to anyone: somehow, the white flower from the angel’s hair never died. He kept it in a drawer and brought it with him to the Academy (and took it that fateful night he left). It was simple reminder of simpler times, and late at night when he’s desperate to sleep, he yearns for it to be that way again.

 

Since that first night, Padmé Amidala had drifted in and out of his childhood, usually appearing when he felt most alone. Her visits start off frequent when he is smaller. Once a week, occasionally twice. When he reaches his preteens, he is lucky if he sees her once a month. In his teens, it becomes a biannual affair.

 

Then she stopped altogether, with no warning.

 

He was bitter, of course, but unsurprised. After learning who his grandfather was from a political scandal broadcasted across the damn galaxy (rather than from his own _mother_ ), it was fairly easy to connect the dots and come to the conclusion that Padmé was his grandmother. It made it all the more easier to accept that she was just another family member pushed away by the darkness brewing inside of him.

 

And now Rey has left him, too.

 

He had killed _Snoke_ for her. He had offered her the kriffing galaxy, and she had still left him. She had turned on him and his outstretched hand, hopeful and pathetic and waiting. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had said “please” to anyone, yet there he had stood, asurrounded by the mess they had created in the throne room, weak with compassion for her.

 

Now that he’s the Supreme Leader, it feels like a hollow victory.

 

And there’s so much _work_ to be done that he shouldn’t be dwelling on it as much as he has been. He had spent all day flitting between meetings and strategizing (well, _arguing_ ) with Hux, who seemed determined to give him a headache at all times, temporarily shutting up whenever Kylo’s temper flared so as to avoid being hurled into a wall again. And then there was finding a replacement for Phasma, after discovering that the traitor FN-2187 disposed of her and nearly incited a stormtrooper rebellion in the process. Which, of course, also called for sending all of the troops for reconditioning…

 

He was tired, and it’s because of this that he makes it as far as his bed until he realizes that he has a guest.

 

Padmé Amidala, former Queen and senator of Naboo, wife of Anakin Skywalker, is standing at his desk, dimly illuminating the darkness of his quarters with a blue glow.

 

“You still love calligraphy” is the first thing she says to him in nearly ten years, fingertips lightly running over thin, yellowed paper. She looks different from his childhood memories of her; the flowers are gone from her hair and she has traded the shimmering water gown for a velvet, cloaklike dress, the hood of it over her head, covering her curls.

 

He falters for a split second, her sudden reappearance a small shock to the system, but it fades quickly. The quick turn of events the past week had made him rather immune to surprises, but he’d be lying if he said seeing his dead grandmother again didn’t tug at his heartstrings, even if ever so slightly.

 

“Hello, Grandmother. It’s been awhile,” he manages, still frozen where he stood, feet firmly planted by his bedside. She turns to look at him, her face as fond and soft as it was when  he was small, and he can only think that he doesn’t deserve to be looked at like that by anyone, not anymore.

 

“Yes. Far too long,” she smiles, focusing her attention on his calligraphy set again, delicate fingers picking up his favorite pen and examining it as he unclips his lightsaber, tossing it on his bed. “Long enough for you to finally put the pieces together.”

 

“I did my research after finding out about Grandfather,” he says admittedly. “A queen and a Senator. You lived quite an admirable life. I’ve never seen Naboo in person before.”

 

“Naboo is lovely,” Padmé beams enthusiastically. “You would admire its beauty. You always had a certain affection for the finer things in the galaxy; it’s a wonder you’ve never been before.”

 

“I haven't had much time to. I’ll have to remedy that, once this war is over.” _If I live past it._ He thinks it’s unlikely that he won’t, but it’s always at the back of his mind, the possibilities of not surviving this. Of finally getting what’s coming to him.

 

“You’ve grown so much.” His grandmother’s voice is fond, and he thinks now that she must have no clue who he is. What he’s done. The blood on his hands.

 

And he thinks, for a moment, of not telling her any of it.

 

He’s careful with his next actions; she is but a phantom, and not a Force user. She could easily disappear and it'd be beyond either of their control. But he still reaches his hand out as if to gently clasp hers and hold it between his hands.

 

 He wants to keep her here, to resurrect her. Even with all of his decisions weighing him down, seeing Padmé’s face look up at him resolves his sins for a split moment.

 

All that light. And hope.

 

The last person who looked at him like that was Rey, and she had turned out to be severely disappointed

 

He squashes the thought of her down almost immediately.

 

“Yes. Time tends to do that,” he says, trying to keep the bitterness from seeping into his words, but she picks up on it right away.

 

“I didn’t choose to stop visiting, Ben. I couldn’t reach you anymore. I tried, though. I swear that I tried,” Padmé says sadly, trying to look into her grandson’s eyes, which are trying to avoid just that. “The darkness— many powerful Jedi can break through to speak to someone clouded by it, but I am no Jedi. I’m just me.” It’s silent for a beat before she continues.

 

“But the light has been strong in you lately, Ben. Even I can feel it.”

 

Kylo’s heart falters at this.

 

“There is no light,” he tries to convince her and himself. “I’m the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Ben Solo is dead.”

 

“Oh? _Supreme Leader_?” Padmé replies, amused, and he can feel his ears turn red at the implications in her voice, as though he is still a child and he is playing pretend. “My apologies on not using your proper title to address you at first. Although, I suppose as your grandmother, I get certain privileges?”

 

He doesn’t answer. She continues. “But at what cost? You had a way out when you killed Snoke. You didn’t take it. But I suspect you regret that now.”

 

He feels crawling over his skin by this admission of knowledge, becoming acutely aware of _her_ awareness. Does she know, then, all of the things he had done? The bad and the good?

 

“No. I don’t,” Kylo says.

 

“The girl, Rey.” His gaze snaps up at the sound of a single syllable. “Who is she?”

 

“No one,” he says almost automatically, attempting to sound harsh but instead feeling like a fool.

 

“Nobody is no one. And she certainly isn’t no one to you, grandson. I see it in your eyes. They soften when you think of her.” A ghost of a smile plays on Padmé’s lips, and he hates himself for that damned compassion, a tired thing he can’t seem to squash.

 

“No” is the only word he can think of saying, his mouth dry and something inside of him aching.

 

“She’s beautiful,” Padmé continues. “Strong. Powerful. Your equal in the Force. It is a rarity, for sure.”

 

“She is nothing to me,” he bursts, leather glove clenching into a fist, and, _oh_ , what a sharp contrast to what he was just telling Rey the other day in that throne room, amidst the fire and carnage.

 

“Yes,” she smiles sadly. “You say that now, but if you look inside yourself hard enough, past your anger, you’ll know that isn’t true.”

 

He blinks, and she’s gone.

 

 

-

 

 

They are constantly on the move.

 

They flit from one small, uninhabited planet to the next, never staying in place for more than a few days time. The risk of being found was too grave and the cost too deadly with numbers this low, General Organa says.

           

_And you,_ she adds, looking at Rey solemnly. _The last Jedi. You above all else, we need to keep safe. If there’s any reason the First Order would still be after us, it would be for you. We pose no threat without you, but with you…_

She hasn’t the faintest idea how to tell her that she can sense her son’s actions better than she can; that, whatever connection they seem to have is too strong to break. Even him choosing the dark wasn’t enough to stop the faint pulsing in her head, reminding her of him and their likeness. Twin moons, constantly trying to eclipse the other.           

 

She knows that, despite it all, he would leave her be. _For now_.

 

She doesn’t know what planet they’re on; at this point, she doesn’t bother asking for anything besides coordinates. The terrain is rocky, the air dry and cold. Cracks on the ground indicate that this planet almost broke apart, once. Something underneath, seeking release. She finds the general in a makeshift control room in one of the planet’s many caverns, hastily setup panels and holograms creating light in the dust-covered darkness.

 

“General Organa,” Rey begins halfway across the room, and she is met with a quick, stern quirk of the eyebrow as the older woman briefly lifts her attention from her conversation with Lieutenant Connix.  “Leia,” she corrects herself, the personal aspect of it uncomfortable coming from her mouth.

 

“Rey,” she responds to let her know she’s listening while she turns to examine the holo Lieutenant Connix has in her palm. Connix falters slightly, becoming acutely aware of Rey’s presence, before she continues, cheeks aflame. Rey shifts awkwardly behind Leia. She has become used to this type of behavior towards her and she’s begun to miss when she was regarded as a nobody scavenger on Jakku. At the heart of it, that was still who she was, and being treated as a hero just because she could lift a few rocks was… confusing. _Frustrating_ , almost. She is still Rey of Jakku. Nothing. Parents dead in a pauper’s grave in the desert.

 

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

 

“I just believed that it’d be an unpredicted course of action, General,” Connix insists. “It _just_ might work if we attempt it now, when they think that we’re too weak to try anything.”

           

“But we _are_ too weak to try anything, Lieutenant,” Leia sighs. “I admire the enthusiasm, the willingness to fight, but did we learn _nothing_ from the bombing squadron incident? You and Dameron are far too similar for your good. Which, reminds me, I wanted to ask about the pair of you—” 

 

“On that note,” Connix says hurriedly, cheeks reddening, “I really should be going.” Connix gives Rey an awkward smile as she rushes past her. Rey tries to return it, failing miserably.

 

Leia turns her full body towards Rey, leaning against a set of panels with her eyes shut. This war has aged her beyond her years, and she carried a slump that Rey didn’t notice until now, when the quiet hits in fullness and the General’s guard is down.

 

“How are you?”

 

“How am I? I should be asking you that, General.”

 

“I’m old. It doesn’t matter much to me; you are the light. We need to protect it.”

 

_And if only any of you knew that I communed with the dark_ , Rey thinks bitterly.

 

“You never told me what happened with Luke,” Leia says, a yearning in her voice to cling to whatever memories of her brother Rey could share. She had limited pleasant ones to share.

 

“I thought that Ben could still be turned. Luke had very different views on that than I did. So I left, and went to Ben.”

 

“But Luke was right,.”

 

“Yes. He was right,” Rey says hollowly.

 

She remembers him on his knees before her, the look on his face as she shut the Falcon doors on him, and knows that it’s not entirely true.

 

 

-

 

                                                                       

 Later that night, she hears it.

 

The scratching of pen on paper; an odd, ancient sound that she should have no memory of. She has never so much as seen a piece of paper before wandering into that tree on Achtoo; she wasn’t aware any existed still. Rey automatically rises from the chair she had perched on, leaving one of the Jedi texts open wide on the folding table in her makeshift room.

 

When she turns around, she sees _him_ , hunched over a desk the same way she had been all night, and she can feel her heart pounding in her throat all ugly and loud, holding her breath. Waiting for the inevitability of when the rough sound stops suddenly, for his deep voice to ask her to leave, even though he knows she will not be able to.

 

But he doesn’t.

 

The calligraphy pen keeps scratching ink along the paper and she hates him for it. Every stroke sends bile up her throat. She doesn’t dare make a sound. She doesn’t dare do anything besides silently plead with the Force to end the bond right now, for her to be alone again--

 

And then it finally stops. Pen midair, the Supreme Leader of the First Order freezes, his back straightening, rigid against the high-backed chair.

 

She glances. She feels her fingertips turn to static and pine needles growing in her feet. Maybe she was used to waiting, but this was _torture_.

 

“Rey?”

 

She breathes in, ready to speak.

 

But before she can, and right before he twists his body around to look at her, the bond breaks and he is gone.

 

She kicks her chair, sending it toppling.

 

“Anger is the path to the dark side, you know.”

 

She whips around to find the Jedi-not-quite-Jedi ghost who calls himself Anakin in front of her, a smirk playing his features and rippling the scar across his face. Out of all the dead mentors in the galaxy, why in the name of the Maker was she given such a cocky bastard with a knack for showing up to witness all of her prideless moments?

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Rey growls, bending over to set the chair right side up again.

 

“You know what you should do with that anger?” She blinks, chest still heaving. “ _Practice_. Say what you will about the Dark Side, but I’ve found that lightsaber forms are much easier to master when releasing all of your pent up energy.”

 

“There are forms?” Rey knew there was more to lightsabers than wildly swinging it, but she figured there wasn’t much more than that. Anakin looks disappointed.

 

“You mean to tell me Skywalker never taught you lightsaber forms?”

 

“He wouldn’t so much as touch a lightsaber.”

 

Anakin raises his eyebrows.

 

“Consider this your first official lesson, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't updated since august o o p s
> 
> twitter: @adamdrovers  
> tumblr: taylorsiths.tumblr.com


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